The octagon lesson

A few days ago, Maïa was trying to draw a stop sign. She was having a tough time, mostly because she was starting with a pointy top. Derek decided it was time for Maïa to deepen her knowledge of octagons.

First was the lesson in etymology: "Maïa, how many sides does an octagon have?"

"Six?"

"Don't just guess. Do you know what OCTagon means?"

"No."

"Think about it... OCTagon."

Pause.

And her eyes got big and her mouth made a perfect little O. "OCTOpus! That means EIGHT legs! An octagon has eight sides!"

Great. She had the first piece. Then Derek told her about regular octagons. This was a visual exercise: he drew shapes with eight sides at various angles and different lengths. They didn't look right to Maïa. So she learned about equal sides and equal angles.

Then the third lesson: drawing an octagon. She tried again, and again began with a pointy top and got frustrated. Derek showed her a square and asked, "how can you make this into an octagon?"

Solanne piped up immediately: "cut the corners off!"

So they practiced cutting corners off. At first, they got slightly rounded squares, but soon enough, they got something that resembled a regular octagon.

And that's how our kids learned about regular octagons.

Next week: trigonometry.

Before and After

Busy

It's been a busy week, mostly for me, and mostly at work. My department is tangentally affected by the H1N1 flu virus, but we are running around, making sure that we're on top of things. There's a lot of coordination with other departments, making sure our messaging matches others', behind the scenes kind of work that never really shows, unless, of course, things go wrong. Meanwhile, we continue our every day business, but without the boss around, since he's in meetings and ensuring that everything on the urgent file is dealt with. So I've had a lot to do, keeping everything running, as it were.

It's great fun, in a way, coordinating everyone, seeing to the little details that would otherwise be overlooked, finding 10 precious minutes with my boss to go over the important things that need to be looked at and the less important things that can be deferred, delayed or passed along. But it's not so much fun when it means that I don't see my kids until 6:30 or 7 in the evening - or worse, not at all before they go to bed.

I'm looking forward to quieter times at work. Perhaps in a month or two...